Systems approaches for crop improvement and natural resource management research in CIMMYT: past and future

Abstract

In the past, CIMMYT’s contributions to a more productive and more sustainable agriculture were largely in crop improvement. Some of its contributions were direct: CIMMYT has developed maize and wheat varieties that resist insects and diseases with minimal use of pesticides, or that use water and nutrients more efficiently. But it has contributed more in indirect or preventive ways: new maize and wheat technology has averted or forestalled resource degradation by helping alleviate poverty, generate employment, and stimulate broad-based economic development, thus reducing the pressure on fragile agricultural lands.

This paper describes CIMMYT’s experiences in the use of systems methods to raise the efficiency of crop-improvement research. CIMMYT has achieved higher efficiency by improving the identification and characterization of production environments (mega-environments), the identification and characterization of testing environments, and the characterization of genotype responses and interactions with environments. The paper then describes CIMMYT’s direct contributions to a sustainable agriculture through its endeavors in NRM research, and it suggests opportunities for the use of systems methods in improving the efficiency of these endeavors. The paper closes with a word of caution about the relevance of the outcome, in terms of the link between systems methods (crop models, GIS) and a farming systems perspective (e g , factors affecting the adoption decisions by farmers).